Transformatrix 4000 -- Comments and Suggestions

It seems that a number of us (myself included) have been playing with ideas for a new interactive story arc ... but Ultragirl has actually stepped forward, reposting her recent contributions to the "Tales" thread as the opening chapters of "Transformatrix 4000 v. 2.0."

Now's your chance to start taking our interactive saga in a new direction!

The "Tales of the Transformatrix" thread remains open for writers who'd like to write stories set in the Transformatrix Universe, but outside the continuity of the new interactive story.

Denise is going to get her butt kicked. LOL. I hadn't planned on that kind of "power-up". Tiff has to have a weakness, though. Maybe a short life span?

Sorry about posting before you were finished, Ultragirl.

Can I just say that I think it would be a good idea to let posters to the interactive story edit their own posts? Among other things, it would let us rearrange things in chronological order. It would also let me fix my editing errors, e.g. by changing "several thousand times faster than light" to "many times faster than light" as I thought I had. (If you think she's too powerful now, you should have seen my *first* draft :twisted: .)

Denise is going to get her butt kicked. LOL. I hadn't planned on that kind of "power-up". Tiff has to have a weakness, though. Maybe a short life span?

Well...

(1) I plead another editing error. Long story short, I thought I'd changed "Denise!" to just "Help!", so that the get-butt-kicked-ers would all be volunteers. If you would prefer that Denise not get her butt kicked, consider that change made. My bad.

(2) In general, here's what I was thinking. As of Three Months Later, the balance of power is way on the side of the good guys (er, girls): there are at least six "professional" heroines who can back each other up, while there is no group of more than one bad guy. Witness the fate of Paris Hilton: one good rampage and then she has to wear orange. So, if Tiff is to be a successful super-thug, she has to be able to fight The Establishment at least to a draw. That's why I set her at five times the average of the protagonists. I read Denise as being currently three times the average, so if I were writing, she would indeed get her butt kicked, though Tiff would certainly feel her punches. But Tiff has nothing against the heroines--at least not yet--so she won't pursue them or go out of her way to injure them; she'll just knock them out if they try to stop her and go on her way (there's at least one Tale there...). In the long term, I've thought of at least three ways that the heroines might handle Tiff despite being physically overmatched, and Laura will think of them too if no one else has a better idea first (Tiff can be SuperBabe's personal nemesis if no one else wants to have to deal with her). So please don't give Tiff a weakness; if you need her off the stage, temporarily or permanently, please talk to me first.

--Y

Another option based around the Highlander scenario was that a certain number of Transformees developes Rogue-like powers.

More than one such person might feel like overkill to me, but I'd enjoy reading a series of Tales about a power-draining Transformee. (Working her into the main story would be difficult, I suspect.)

PS: Anon, this is friendly teasing: I'd enjoy reading said stories a lot more if they were less angsty than your usual contributions . I hate anime . You do write it well though.

--Y

One idea I wanted to include in my contest story but forgot to (and one that was mentioned once or twice in the first TF4K thread) was that Kara has a Transformatrix to collect and use on herself. If it can give a human powers beyond those of a Kryptonian, what'll it do to a Kryptonian?

Anon: I was trying not to reveal too much, but I understand that I need to keep you guys somewhat in the loop or hint at it in the writing. Denise will have to pay a small price for that kind of power.

Yara: I certainly didn't mean to undermine the idea. Actually, it was exactly what I was thinking of taking off with.

I don't really like to deal with numbers too much when it comes to supergirls. CF once covered something like this with Blogger. When they are at that power level, numbers start to mean less. I only touched on it because that's what scientists like, hard data.

I totally agree with you. If there is to be a girl like Tiff, she needs to be able to take on a few of our supergirls at a time. Don't change a thing.

A time line is easy. I just put a little "disclaimer" at the beginning of the post.

I like where this is going and I had every intention of getting Denise getting her butt kicked by Tiff. So let's do it. The Tiff/Janet supervillain is a great new story arc!

Updated!

Denise goes for a nice jog through the desert. :wink:

Alrighty, I've been holding off.

Should I post up a Tiff vs. Denise fight? I have a decent idea, but it's not great.

Not It! . A decent idea is better than my haven't-even-thought-about-it, so if no one else feels like jumping in, go ahead.

--Y

I'd say that all four of the workshop stories fit into the established continuity.

Please do write that sequel. I'd love to read it!

And Ultragirl: Go for it. At the very least, it may inspire another writer to pick up where you leave off.

Okay, I updated. It's not the best, but there it is.

Okay, I updated. It's not the best, but there it is.

Mmm, crunchy :twisted: ! Plenty good enough . The only thing I'd tweak is that Tiff doesn't condone backtalk, so "Screw you" would have merited a good hard slap. (Also, the last line would have been a perfect place to introduce the use-name I'd planned for her, but of course you couldn't have known that because I hadn't told you.)

Fortunately for our heroines, Tiff simply doesn't care enough to actually kill them; she has other priorities. I have another post or two for her in the works, but they can take place in parallel to the main thread in which the heroines recuperate and discuss what to do about her. Spulo, if you were looking for something to motivate Kara to risk trying a Transformatrix on herself... .

--Y

Important note: the T5000 beta wasn't actually from GenreFan; it was from Janet Klyburn, who wanted to test one before she used one on herself. I'm sure by the time you read this she'll have made herself 5000-class too.

I don't have any plans for Regina, so feel free to exploit her exploits.

--Y

Thanks for bringing back Regina, Y!

To be honest, I have reservations about the new story-line. We might see chapter after chapter in which X uses the new, improved Transformatrix to make herself more powerful than Y, and Y uses it to become more powerful than X, and Z uses it to make herself more powerful than both of them together, with no end in sight.

But I enjoyed writing the "Plastics" into the Transformatrix Universe, and it might be fun to put Ms. Norbury into action. Conceptfan wanted the confrontation between Regina and Ms. Norbury to turn into a "school-destroying fight," so maybe he can get his wish!

Ms. Norbury, for those who don't know, is the math teacher from Mean Girls -- played by the fetching Tina Fey:

entimg.msn.com/i/150/Movies/Actors2/Fey_MT1245231_150x200.jpg

To be honest, I have reservations about the new story-line. We might see chapter after chapter in which X uses the new, improved Transformatrix to make herself more powerful than Y, and Y uses it to become more powerful than X, and Z uses it to make herself more powerful than both of them together, with no end in sight.

www.jargon.net/jargonfile/d/Dontdothatthen.html :-) . I don't mean that as dismissive; I certainly understand your concern. But I think the answer is simply that we're better writers than that. At least you all are; I hope I am too :-) .

For my part, I've been working from a pretty clear conception of where I think this story-line would naturally lead. I've been trying to *not* introduce too many of my background assumptions into canon, because I don't want to unduly constrain future authors, but if I've written y'all into a corner where it looks like the whole thing is untenable, I'd be happy to explain where I've been aiming. Or, if all else fails, we can boot my wrong turn into an alternate universe and try again.

--Y

Okay, I advanced the plot a bit, hopefully enough for someone else to post next. If I were more creative I would have thrown in a couple of red herrings, too; more leads to follow would mean more sub-threads for individual authors to lay claim to without having to worry about stepping on anyone else's toes.

Regina is sort of a red herring too: a non-essential side-plot. I didn't realize she was a movie character, but as I read her, she's naughty but not cruel, and more or less non-violent; unlike Tiff, she's not going to do anything that would make her Public Enemy #1, or even #10. Despite her power, her personality means that she'll remain a petty villain rather than a major one. At least that's what I was thinking when I decided to use her to test what I'm referring to as the T5000.

Perhaps starting another Interactive storyline thread?

If other people are like me, there's no telling what will strike their fancy and inspire them to put fingers to keyboard, so it would not be a bad plan to throw lots of Interactive starts at the wall and see which ones people take up.

--Y

I think I need to ask this explicitly, because I'm confused: what exactly is problematic about over-powered characters? The obvious problem is that they tend to steal *the story* from the protagonists, but I had that under control and just didn't do a good job of making that clear. My plan for Klyburn's succession of guinea pigs was that they would be a series of problems which couldn't be solved by brawn but could be solved by brain; and, when solved, those characters would be ushered more or less off stage (to Tales, perhaps) while the protagonists got on with the main thread of tracking Klyburn (and the other personal side-plots they have going). If that creates a problem I'm not seeing, we'll abandon it, but please show me the problem so I don't keep tripping over it.

Assuming we do want to go a different direction, the following new laws of physics will cover it:

1. Any application of a Transformatrix to an existing transformee has only a temporary effect. Sorry, Regina. (This also makes things more difficult for Klyburn herself, but she'll find a way around it eventually.)

2. There's only so much transforming a normal human can take. Tiff is the limit; anything more than that will kill the subject before the transformation can take hold. (Perhaps Klyburn accidentally vaporized several earlier test subjects before she scaled the T5000 down to where it still worked safely.)

I will admit to having a personal preference for leaving the universe open to characters of higher power levels; perhaps I'm just misreading how powerful the T4000s are, but to me it looks like they're not unlimited, even physically. But obviously that's a decision that should be made by the group, and I think at this point it would probably be a good idea to make it explicitly. Comments?

--Y

Well, since I'm the only one who's expressed a reservation about the new story-line, I guess I should answer that.

I don't have a problem with extra-powerful super-women per se. I love an uber-catfight as much as the next SWManiac, and this story-line has great potential in that respect!

My only concern was that the story might become stuck in a rut by introducing an endless succession of uber-transformees and uber-uber-transformees and uiber-uber-uber-transformees ad infinitum. But maybe you're right -- perhaps I'm not giving my fellow-writers enough credit.

Your two "ground rules" take care of my reservation, neatly and effectively. Let's make those "official" and move ahead with the story-so-far (which I've enjoyed very much).

Y: It looks as if you got my message. I assume my idea for a new chapter doesn't interfere with your long-range plans?

Well, since I'm the only one who's expressed a reservation about the new story-line, I guess I should answer that.

I don't have a problem with extra-powerful super-women per se. I love an uber-catfight as much as the next SWManiac, and this story-line has great potential in that respect!

My only concern was that the story might become stuck in a rut by introducing an endless succession of uber-transformees and uber-uber-transformees and uiber-uber-uber-transformees ad infinitum. But maybe you're right -- perhaps I'm not giving my fellow-writers enough credit.

Your two "ground rules" take care of my reservation, neatly and effectively. Let's make those "official" and move ahead with the story-so-far (which I've enjoyed very much).

Y: It looks as if you got my message. I assume my idea for a new chapter doesn't interfere with your long-range plans?

I had mentioned before that Denise would have to pay a price for her extra power. I really didn't want to reveal it just yet. She's headed to a "hospital" despite her healing, and we'll find out then. It may help with the rules for the crazy-powered girls.

Here are some thumbnail personality profiles for the quintet of super-women who are on Dr. Klyburn's trail (for the benefit of writers who want to tell them apart):

1. Lois Lane -- The consummate super-heroine (even more so than Kara) and the natural leader of the group. Picked up the ropes of super-heroing in the course of her long relationship with Superman (whose powers have vanished). Can juggle tanks and crush solid steel with the best of them, but also a level-headed strategist who looks at all sides of a situation. A tough, independent-minded investigative journalist. As "Ultrawoman," has taken Superman's place as the super-hero(ine) of Metropolis.

2. DeeAnn Donovan -- Feisty and fun-loving. Gets a charge out of being super and enjoys any opportunity to put her powers to the test. A bit of a show-off at times. A fitness model before her transformation, she is possibly the strongest of the transformess (at least until Denise's "power boost") -- although she's only 5'2" tall. Took the name "Superwoman" (and wore a costume to match) in the first story-arc, but now spends most of her time running her agency "Super Models Incorporated." Still, always ready to help her friends in an emergency -- especially if it promises a good scrap.

3. Kara Zor-El -- The original Supergirl. Less powerful than the transformees, but her experience as a super-heroine makes her a valuable member of the team. Has passed on the sobriquet "Supergirl" to Amber Slater. Still wears one of her old costumes and goes on patrol regularly, but now spends most of her time as a teacher/administrator at a newly founded academy for would-be super-heroines. Romantically involved with transformee Jill Henderson, though Jill's reluctance to bcome a costumed super-heroine has introduced some tension into their relationship.

4. Amber Slater -- At 17, the youngest of the group. Has taken the name "Supergirl," and is determined to live up to its legacy. A student at the super-heroine academy, but often goes into action as Supergirl (usually under Kara's watchful eye). Has performed some notable rescues and has been called "America's Super Sweetheart." Dedicated and altruistic, but still something of an innocent. Kara and Lois will be watching her back. Amber may prove to be hesitant when it comes to engaging in direct combat (unless her boy-friend Bobby Franklin is threatened ... )

5. Lana Lang -- A reporter for a Metropolis television station. Unlike Lois, somewhat impetuous -- inclined to tackle problems directly, without considering the larger picture. She's been fighting organized crime in Metropolis and generating some controvery by her methods. Civil libertarians accuse her of invasion of privacy (she uses her super-vision to follow suspected mobsters). She's inadvertently derailed a couple of undercover police operations. And since footage of her "citizen's arrests" wind up on her television station, her motives and her journalistic ethics have been questioned. But the citizens of Metropolis have taken the red-headed super-reporter to their hearts, follow her exploits avidly, and credit her with the drop in their city's crime rate. [This is all in a story I plan to post on the "Tales" thread.]

Anyway, that's how I see them.